238 (II)

  Cancer [I]

  Several hands went up among the gathered mass of Biomancers. Javelina added an addendum: “Are there any questions that don't have to do with asking for an extension, or perhaps time off after this is done?” A series of groans came, and hands fell. “Yes, again, you are not getting extra credit for this. It is your duty, you chose this path, you chose this life, get used to it. It's thankless, it's miserable, it's shit. Get used to eating shit.”

  Shiv could feel the Georges radiating from her. He liked her already.

  Next, slowly, Maxime lifted her arm as others fell. Her complexion, already pale, became fully waxen. She seemed almost sickly. "Hero-Biomancer Van Erren. What are we going to do about Senior Residents Huelle and Morgana if we cannot avoid them?”

  Javelina didn't reply at first, but Shiv caught a slight breath that escaped her. “Our main focus will be the patients, and for the Morbomancers… Give diplomacy a chance. If not, set up wards and try to isolate. If that doesn’t work, well, we’re Pathbearers. Do what you need to.”

  She paused briefly as her massive hog leaned in behind to oink at her. A red glow emanated from its eyes, and the Biomancy powering it grew even stronger than before as its bristles grew thicker and longer. Shiv had no idea what kind of weird monster-skill this was, but something told him that the boar was no normal boar at all.

  “Fucking kill ‘em,” the shifting boar grunted. “Those dumb cocksuckers forgot their oaths. You need to kill ‘em, then kill ‘em.”

  “Our patients remain our utmost priority,” Javelina repeated once more. “There are things I'm not saying here, but you're smart kids. Pick up the subtext. Understand that we're dealing with something we don't wanna handle. But that's every day. Every single day.”

  She drew in a breath through her nose. “We're Pathbearers. Nothing's going to be easy. Nothing is promised; everything is a struggle. But we get through it, for the people inside Last Chance, and we get through it because we have to, because there's no one else. Someone has to go to hell. I see some new faces among you. You look unprepared. You look scared. Good, I'm unprepared, I'm scared. Welcome to your first day of 301. It's not going to be fun; most of you will quit, but I ask you to stay this day. I can't promise that you'll come out of this alive or untraumatized, but I'm asking you to stay because right now we need everyone we can to help deal with the hell that follows.”

  A few people shifted awkwardly, but the Hero-Biomancer continued without interruption. “It's not just the Morbomancers that we have to deal with, or the sicknesses they spread through the various wards. I was occupied up north for a reason. The Capital Conclave called in every hospital director in the city. There was a mana explosion at a mithril foundry in Gate Tullus. It’s not looking good. Consequence South and Northern Hopes have all been filled to the brim, and they're over capacity and out of beds. They’re even out of hallway space, which means we're due to receive a mass casualty event right after. So we need to handle this right now, and then we need to start bracing. Expect a long night, kids. I hope you had a good dinner, because you're probably not getting breakfast.”

  And that was a speech Georges might give—just with considerably less cursing.

  "Shit," Shiv muttered.

  “Welcome to 301,” Maxime said. She didn’t quite manage a laugh.

  “Alright. So one last time. If anyone wants to back out now… stick around. I need you. If only for tonight. Don't be a coward.” No one moved, but Shiv could taste the rising tension in the air. “Alright,” Javelina said with a grunt. “We go in. Warders! Tighten the quarantine. And push the gawking fools back. Don’t lower the barriers until we return. Captain, you stay here and hold the grounds. Get the sterilizers on stand-by. I don't want to do this, but if we can't push through in time, then we're going to need to cleanse the oncology ward. Let the Headmaster know too if he doesn’t already.”

  “With the patients still inside?” Calcifer asked.

  Javelina looked the winged automaton up and down as if it were simple. “Well, yes. Incineration is a kinder fate than having your body turn to a mess of constantly regenerating sprawl of tumors. Which is what I assume Huelle has already done to far too many of the existing patients already. Those damned Cancer Dimensionals must be spawned from something.”

  A shudder of absolute terror escaped Calcifer, and Shiv couldn't blame the automaton. A Cancer Dimensional wasn't something the Deathless had ever seen, but even after all the weird and fucked-up enemies he'd killed, he didn't think he much wanted to see that.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Mainly because with our current Tier of Biomancy, we'll just end up making them stronger. We’ll be creating more cancers than we can contain.

  Shiv also didn't like being mocked by his own skill, but he couldn't deny it outright. Hey, Sage, keep your demoralizing opinions to yourself.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: No. And before you threaten me, remember I'm a part of you, and I control the aspects of you that wield anger. Be rational. Don’t use your Biomancy sloppily—and don’t overperform. Remember: You’re the physically and magically useless Marcus Unblood—boy who refuses to use protection.

  Shiv frowned deeply. All right. Wish I developed a skill that felling respected me, but all right.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: I'm not here to be polite. I'm simply here to remind you that you cannot afford to be an idiot anymore. There are other students here. Be mindful.

  "You ready?" Maxime asked. Shiv looked at the girl and realized she was swallowing more than before. Every few seconds, her throat would bob, and the Biomancy around her would shiver. She was keeping her field coiled tight, drawn in. It was more compact than he remembered it. But even so, it was a soft field, one that belonged to a healer rather than one who used it as a weapon.

  "Not really," Shiv replied, playing the role of Marcus Unblood, an Adept who didn't possess any means of protecting himself, but was here anyway. He was, in a word, something between a fool and a hero.

  "Yeah, well, I think that's how I feel too." Maxime chuckled. "Don't worry and stay close. Javelina and the senior residents will keep us safe. We'll probably be sent to hold and monitor the situation at Pediatrics. With a bit of luck and some favor from the System, I think we'll miss the worst of it."

  Shiv's right eye twitched.

  "Marcus," she said, her brow furrowing, "Are you alright?"

  “Uh, yeah, it's fine. I'm just nervous. I do that when I'm nervous.”

  Inside, he was groaning even louder, and Adam suffered along with him. "Why did she have to use that word?" the Gate Lord cried.

  With a loud whistle, Javelina thrust her crystal staff up into the air, and a stampede of wild boars emerged from her Biomancy in a tsunami of mana. They charged through the glass doors leading into Last Chance Sanatorium. The glass doors were promptly shattered, and the insides of the hospital were filled by the rampaging mana beasts.

  Javelina's monster-hog followed, serving as a vanguard for the rest of the biomancers. It was twice the size it was before, and twin tusks glowing with blood-red Mana sprouted free from its massive face. Javelina followed, and then behind her trailed the senior residents of Last Chance Sanatorium.

  “Move those fucking legs, you worthless shits,” the pig called over its shoulder, its voice booming like gravel infused with thunder.

  Shiv and the surrounding students were junior residents and new medics. That put them at the rear of the group. But even so, a feeling of foreboding was growing stronger inside him, and as he ended up marching through those shattered doors, it felt like he was walking into the jaws of hell. Something was wrong here. Something was amiss, but he just couldn't tell what.

  Most of the other 301 students looked out of place and terrified. No one spoke to their fellows, and they only did as their senior resident asked.

  “Stay close, Marcus. I’ll do what I can to look out for you, if you’ll keep that keen eye of yours out for me.” Maxime's head swung about as if it were on a loose swivel, and she stared down the halls to the left and right.

  They seemed vacant now, but there was a lingering trace of something in the air. Small particulates that glinted bright red. Biomatic pathogens, Shiv realized. “I think we got something in the air.”

  Farsight 92 > 95

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Good,” Malcolm said. The automaton’s face opened wider like a fan, and its optics winked out. “He’s already paying attention. Saves me from screwing up again.”

  “Shut up, Malcolm,” Maxime muttered.

  “I have our rogue Morbomancers,” Adam suddenly said. “They’re near the very top of this tower, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I can’t be sure. It’s not like they have bodies, but a new wing of patients just got swallowed by tumors. Gods, Shiv, it’s like a nightmare up there. The tumors are spilling out from their mouths and spreading to the rest of them. It’s like they learned how to crawl under the skin. Gods, the places you bring me to.”

  “Fuck,” Shiv grunted. What else could he say? He tapped into Adam's recent memories and beheld a horrific scene. True to the Gate Lord's words, there were dozens of patients lying upon gurneys that now had sprawling masses growing across their faces. The masses seemed to be moving, however. Instead of being stationary, they glided, they slithered under the skin. They'd passed the threshold of the patients’ lips, and then they blocked up noses, they dislodged eyeballs, they swelled and consumed the rear of optical cords, and then they blossomed out from ears like expanding bits of cauliflower.

  Every second that passed brought a new transformation, and Shiv saw something else in the air: the red glints he had noticed earlier.

  More spores, Shiv thought to himself. Why are they so damned bright?

  The small army of Biomancers was packed tight together in the lobby of Last Chance. There was an eeriness to the place. Paintings of Maiden the Genius and Daughter the Deadly, with their backs facing each other, decorated the ceiling, and boards on a nearby wall displayed the senior residents and Section Heads assigned to each ward, as well as an overall map of the hospital.

  Down here, everything seemed mostly ordinary. So why couldn’t he see or hear any people? There were still life signatures in the building. Lots of them. The patients were still alive and littering the right and left sections of the structure, so where was the noise?

  He did two things right after. First, he drew upon his Bifurcated Processing skill and assigned the duty to his Farsight. He kept his Awareness stressed, tasked with noticing every glowing particle that drifted through the surrounding atmosphere. The second was to send a request to Adam. “Alright, I need you to get Helix over. You tell him that I need him to be here for this, and I need him specifically. His ego will be too tickled to refuse, and we're going to need him to figure some of this stuff out. I have a bad feeling, and I need the best Biomancer we have.”

  “Already done,” Adam said. “I fired a Veilpiercer in the Forest of Alloy. He’ll be over soon.”

  Just then, Shiv's body involuntarily spasmed. It was like he was being shocked by something, but then he realized it was just his awareness reacting automatically. A few spores drifted close to him and the other Biomancers. Most of them remained indifferent, but some new assistant medics and junior Biomancers regarded the spores with fear.

  “Look at those glioblastoma spores,” a short-haired girl wearing pure-white healer robes cried. “They’re getting so dense I can barely see a few meters out.”

  One of the spores bounced off Shiv's Shapeless Tides, but promptly started dissolving as it came into contact with the protective Biomancy spells applied to him by Maxime.

  "Don't worry about those," Maxime said, though she didn't sound overly confident. "Nothing short of a concentrated Biomancy attack should breach our wards."

  "Residents!" Javelina cried out. She plucked her school pin from her collar and held it high for everyone to see. It glinted with violet mana. "Stay in touch with your section heads. Section heads, you can report whatever you encounter to me. I'll be heading up, and you'll be receiving your assigned area soon. Remember, if you encounter…"

  And just then, a clattering sound came from the staircase before her. It was the sound of footsteps hammering against the floor. Heavy footsteps. Footsteps that cracked the linoleum tiles that made up the stairs of the hospital.

  Javelina tensed, as did the rest of the gathered Biomancers.

  "What the hells?" Adam rasped from inside Shiv's cape. "I didn't even notice that one. Where did he come from? It’s like he just emerged from thin air.”

  Down a long set of stairs leading into the lobby descended a horrifically mutilated individual. His body was bulging in several places. His face was a mutated mess. He looked more like a deformed rocky crag than a person, and the cancers that were spreading out from him looked somehow calcified.

  But that wasn't what stole Shiv's attention. What consumed the Deathless was the fact that the man was slowly beginning to fill with vitality.

  Shiv's breath caught. The tumor-consumed figure didn't have lifeforce up until a moment ago. The Biomancy spores were slowly sliding into his being and building inside of him, accumulating as if he were some kind of reservoir.

  Shiv tried to recall if he'd noticed a vitality signature coming down from that direction, and remembered nothing. “He might have actually formed out of thin air. Or…” A darker thought followed. “Or the spores…”

  Shiv's instincts screamed that they were in terrible danger, that he needed to attack right now. But he couldn't. Not with so many others around him, and not until he understood what was actually happening.

  "Sir?" Javelina called out. "Sir, are you a patient from oncology? How did you get beyond the wards?”

  The cancer-ridden man let out a sob and held his arms to his sides. For the first time, Shiv saw a bare torso, and a feeling of revulsion crawled through him. Nearby, a few students lost their dinners immediately. The ground grew slick with vomit, and a foul stench filled the air. He couldn't blame them.

  The man's torso had been utterly colonized by tumors. But there was something about the tumors, something about them, that looked wrong to Shiv. They pressed against each other, they slid, they opened, they gave glimpses of the organs inside; also cancerous, also consumed with shifting bits of diseased tissue.

  But more than that, every tumor glowed with vitality. Every tumor radiated a life force of its own. What the hells am I even looking at? Shiv thought to himself.

  "Sir!" Javelina called out again. This time, the man looked in her direction, and instead of sobbing, he let out a delirious laugh.

  "You can’t… save them!"

  Without warning, the patient's chest detonated outward, and from within his flesh spilled an ocean of lashing tumors that cascaded along the walls and ground to come crashing down toward Javelina and her army of Biomancers.

  The cancerous flood came, and Shiv struck back in kind.

  His temporal shell flared around him like the dawning of a new sun. Clad in gold, time-halting armor, he launched himself forward, jumping past the other students around him.

  Yet he wasn't the one that struck first.

  Hero-Biomancer Javelina’s gauntlet unleashed a spell of its own the moment time was held still. It wasn't an attack. It was a layered aegis that spread out along the ground. The wards resembled a hexagon that rose from the ground, its sides ridged with jutting pyramids. It stretched out, and, rather than simply shrouding only the Hero-Biomancer herself, it wrapped the entire Biomancy company tasked with retaking the hospital.

  Shiv launched himself past the protective threshold, and he observed how that Chronomantic shield functioned. The currents of time accelerated along the many-ridged shield, and it basically functioned as a fraying mechanism against any oncoming time magic spells. It warded those within from everything happening outside and gave them more time to prepare. If he had to guess, it was a Master-Tier piece of Chronomancy, at least. But the Hero Biomancer herself lacked any Chronomancy mana.

  And that was Shiv's saving grace. That allowed him to slam down upon the ruined carcass that once was the cancerous patient and use his Shapeless Tides to close shut the breach that spewed wave after wave of tumors into existence.

  The massive chasm at the man's heart continued pumping out slithering strands of tumorous material, and Shiv saw with growing suspicion how they all glinted deep red. It wasn't just the color of Biomancy. No—vitality shone brighter than the magic of blood and flesh. Vitality was like a flaming gem in a forest of midnight. And he tasted the vitality within this man, knew the warmth, and separated it.

  Every tumor—no, every cell that made up every tumor within that man—was an organism unto itself. They were alive, individual units. They glowed, giving off life energy, and they came together to deform the man, to disfigure him in ways Shiv couldn't comprehend.

  He reached deeper. His focus narrowed to a needle-point. Inside the man, there was another place, and another presence. A presence that radiated so much warmth that the Deathless thought he was standing at the heart of a small star.

  He'd tasted warmth like this only a few times before.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, Shiv sank his fingers into the misshapen flesh-hive, and his Shapeless Tides rushed to pinch the cancerous opening shut. They clashed against the ruined chasm running through man, and the tumors within shuddered before Shiv's overwhelming might.

  And yet, the Magical Resistance infused within his Legendary Skill shuddered. Blasts of turbulent red spilled over him. It was like he was wrestling with an ocean, and Shiv snarled as he found himself struggling.

  Through the shifting chasm, he saw the man's inner organs once more, but there was more than that. There was an entire realm past the organs. It was like the man was merely foliage, hiding a different place within his flesh.

  And then Shiv saw it. A shape in the depths. A shape that seemed to stare back at him.

  Within the realm, staring up at him like a creature at the bottom of a deep-dark well, was a figure of glowing gold, a veil of shifting translucence glowing behind their head like a halo.

  The figure’s hair flowed around their body like black ink, while their face was cast in shadow. But despite this, Shiv knew it was the visage of a man, his face a pale canvas imprinted upon a backdrop of red and darkness.

  His eyes were dotted with specks of gold and rimmed with translucence, but at their core, they were crimson.

  Shiv knew those eyes. He knew the scent in the air, the taste of blood on his tongue.

  A vampire. And one that shone with a blinding radiance of vitality, and radiated with a collection of magical lores Shiv was more than familiar with.

  This wasn't the vitality of a Hero. This was a Legend. A Legend possessed of Chronomancy, Psychomancy, and Biomancy at once.

  The vampire's eyes glowed as he gazed upon the Deathless. Shiv's temporal shell rattled, and, for a moment, neither of the two moved. Then, their mutual surprise popped like a bubble, and they both struck at once.